He is a normal-looking person, leading a seemingly normal life. His eyes are not crazed. He is not unkempt. He has a job and has normal social interactions. There is no apparent sign of a mental disorder. Yet a dark secret lurks behind the shadows — he is a child sexual abuser. There is no formulaic profile that fits a perpetrator of child sexual abuse. There is no way even an adult can identify him or her, leave alone a child. Seven-year-old Zainab of Kasur fell prey to one such felon whose crime remained invisible till Zainab was found, albeit too late.

As Pakistan grapples in the wake of this shocking incident, it is time to raise awareness not just about the crime but also about the criminal who is often imperceptible.

“There is no single profile for a perpetrator of child sexual abuse because not every child sexual abuser is a pedophile. Pedophilia is a disorder and a specific sexual preference; it is a sickness,” says Dr Asha Bedar, clinical psychologist, trainer and researcher, who has worked extensively with cases of child sexual abuse.

As Pakistan grapples in the wake of this shocking incident, it is time to raise awareness not just about the crime but also about the criminal who is often imperceptible.

In her professional experience, Bedar has seen that many perpetrators are not pedophiles. “They can be very seemingly normal and functional people who have no diagnosed mental illness. They can be respected members of the society. They can be popular in social circles, hard to detect and harder to believe to be sexual predators of children. This makes it doubly tough for children to identify them as well.”

About pedophiles, Dr Uroosa Talib, Psychiatrist and Head of Medical Services, Karwan-e-Hayat Hospital, says that they are not recognisable by appearance, speech or demeanour. “To get to the child, they develop a step by step plan. They first observe how they can build a rapport with the child. These are sharp, brutal, cruel people who will go to any length to get what they want.”

Among the celebrities who have courageously spoken up about being survivors of child sexual abuse is female actor, Nadia Jamil, who has used the platform of social media to draw attention to the issue, and toward other victims like Kainat Batool.

Jamil echoes the view of experts that there is no set profile of such a perpetrator of child sexual abuse, or a rapist. “Any man could potentially sexually abuse or molest a child. Rich men have raped and will. Poor men have raped and will. Literate and illiterate men have raped and will. Until you deal with violent and domineering stereotypes created by patriarchy, men will continue to abuse,” she says, sharing her views with TNS.

“Pedophilia is a disease. True pedophiles are attracted sexually to pre-pubescent children in general. The urges and reasons behind the act of abuse may be different between a pedophile and non-pedophile abuser but the danger is the same — being aroused by a child,” she says, adding that not all abusers are men.

Dr Talib says the commonest emotional trauma that leads to personality disorders is child sexual abuse, even if the impact remains only as a suppressed memory or is clouded by denial. “This is one of the most difficult traumas to ever get over. The victims, in turn, can become perpetrators, and often use sex for power. Their morality changes.”

Earlier this week, the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) sent recommendations to the State, as well as to the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW); one of these is to conduct psychological and psychiatric evaluations of those convicted of sexual abuse and rape, including of minors.

Bedar also says that research shows that the numbers of girls and boys sexually abused is almost the same. “But due to years of social conditioning boys internalise the idea that they can protect themselves; they do not want to accept their vulnerability. Gender dynamics and abuse have a very strong connection,” she says, adding that socially generated ideas of masculinity make the boys think that ‘if I can’t be a victim than I must have been a part of it’.

Thus, many male victims grow up telling themselves that they must have consented to it, especially if the abuser was a woman. “Boys are also more vulnerable in some ways as they are outdoors more often and parents allow sons to be with strangers like drivers or helpers more readily compared to daughters.”

Evidence suggests that child sexual abuse and rape is linked to gender-based violence in general. “Strong gender role socialisation, power dynamics, myths about gender and rape, lack of strong sanctions and strong male peer support for masculinity and role modelling” are some of the dynamics Bedar feels need to be looked into.

Experts agree that the core to the solution is making the children more aware but parents are a big part of this equation. “Parents need to have a relationship and connectedness with their children that their child can come and share not just successes but also failures, so that if anything like this happens that makes the child feel embarrassed, he or she can still share it with their parents and their parents believe them,” says Dr Talib. “Giving a child the concept of religious boundaries can actually work positively. This also helps them understand the concept of good and bad touch with keeping religious sensitivities in mind. Teach your children rights over their self and the dignity of their bodies.”

Jamil says she would be wary of strange men paying too much attention to a child. “We have to teach our children to be vigilant and to protect themselves and others. Warn them. Keep an eye on them and pray hard. And we have to change the way we educate ourselves and our kids. Till the state invests in the right people…it’s up to us. One child at a time. We cannot afford to stop or give up. We will not give up.”

One official has called it “the largest child abuse scandal in Pakistan’s history.” PHOTO: REUTERS

I don’t curse. But this is a rare occasion where I would love to abuse the perpetrators of theKasur children’ssexual abuse atrocity in the vilest possible terms. However, here’s the thing about cursing – If I curse, I would end up using words that revile their mothers, sisters, and use the same pile of filth in words that they actually went and committed by use of force, intoxication and blackmailing.

So I would only be furthering the same thought process, where sex is connected with a position of power. People who curse using sexual terminology are played into feeling a sense of control, and it allows one to vent unrestrictedly. In a twisted and mutated way, so does rape or molesting a child. So no, cursing will not help. We have to come up with something better. Understanding how child sexual abuse is happening in a society where the Youtube blocks have clearly not mitigated paedophilia, leave alone pornography, some things needs to be understood.

This particular incident is so painful and sensitive that we have re-evaluated each word we are using. Scandal, for example, is a wrong word to use here, because it can be used for rumour or gossip. This incident is no rumour – it happens to be a real wound that will remain etched in the Pakistani nation’s collective memory. One must also not compare the criminals with animals, because such brutality is rare among animals.

All I can do is pray earnestly that may they be punished without an iota of compassion shown to them, may they be made a bad example of, and may they burn in the lowest depths of hell.

Yet, just condemning them to hell is not enough. Some 500 abused children, 15 accused (the youngest of them is allegedly just 14-years-old), seven FIRs, and a judicial probe order later, have we learnt anything about the monstrosity that child sexual abuse is? This had been going on for years! Black mailing, cover ups, a silent town. The details will keep emerging as the story unfolds, and we may never know what the exact truth is.

These children were in big numbers, and numbers jolt us awake, albeit temporarily. But what about what happens around us?

Have we seen the number of street children in Karachi alone, and do we realise that each one of them is sexually molested within days of being initiated onto the open roads?

Which one of us has not come across stories of children being molested sexually?

The accused, for whom we all are praying for eternal damnation, are from among us. Sexual abuse at a tender age rewires the brain in mysterious ways. Every child who has undergone this trauma suffers from neurobiological, as well as long-term psychological effects. Each case will be different, as will how the child, even when a grown adult, processes it.

But the scar will remain. For some, the long-term impacts may be milder but debilitating– like deep-rooted psychiatric disorders, depression, anxiety, failed relationships, inherently low self-esteem, use of sex as a means of feeling better about themselves, and irresponsible decisions when it comes to sexual activity. For others, it might be an aversion to sex and prudish behaviour for a long time. In a worst case scenario, he/she who was once the victim, is now the perpetrator.

Pakistan, fortunately, still has a social system where very few will agree with post-modernist and other theories, where childhood is not considered the age of innocence. An example is what was said in the California Childhood Sensuality Circle, by its main figure Valida Davila, in 1981:

“We believe children should begin sex at birth”.

A legal minor, or a child, is a child, not yet in a position where he or she can make an informed decision about entering into such activity. While the law of Pakistan agrees with this, and whether the child resisted or not, considers it statutory rape when a minor is sexually molested, not everyone in society agrees.

I came across a recent case, and this is factual, where a 12-year-old girl was raped by a man in his 40s. The two had been interacting and chatting as they lived in the same neighbourhood. Even after the rape was proven and the man confessed, people of the neighbourhood and the girl’s own relatives were heard saying

“It was not really rape as she is a very tez (conniving) girl and was having an affair with him; she never resisted”.

The child was a curious 12-year-old with raging hormones, not a consenting adult.

The difference must be understood in the backdrop of the Kasur incident, because now that the entire community knows which children were sexually abused and filmed, those films will be run and rerun to see where there were signs of resistance, and where the child seemed to consent. Sadly, but surely, the incident will haunt those 500 young lives and their families in a judgmental society.

Child sexual abuse perpetrators, as psychologists confirm, often befriend the child and develop a comfort level where they do not have to use physical force. Yet, because it is a child in question, it is an unfair equation and abuse of the highest order.

But what is perhaps most worrisome, that there is a market out there, and an avid watcher of these films, who may not be an active paedophile himself, but enjoys the sickening, cheap thrills of watching a helpless child being forced into the act.

This is an unsafe, bad, bad world. In your community, watch out for any suspicious activity, and report it, whether it is your child or someone else’s. Protect your child at all costs, especially when at a formative, unripe age where the child cannot distinguish between right and wrong. Do not trust anyone with your child. And if you happen to know someone who was a victim, stop judging that person. Most importantly, seek help, both psychological and legal.

May the Kasur incident be the last of its kind. And may we have learnt some lessons to protect our children.